Friday, February 27, 2015

Who hasn't heard of American software company Intuit? They've been around since 1983 doing a great job providing easy and convenient accounting solutions to businesses of all sizes. Now comes the disruptive part and enough that Intuit better not ignore. It's clear that Intuit CEO Brad Smith is already on it with his recent article "Intuit's CEO on Building a Design-Driven Company," in the January/February 2015 - Harvard Business Review.

Now there's New Zealand-based software company Xero that develops 'beautiful' cloud-based accounting software for small and medium-sized businesses. The company has offices in New Zealand, Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

And there's accounting software company The Sage Group who just recently announced a global agreement with Salesforce.com that goes like this:

Saturday, February 21, 2015

The Aon Center is a modern skyscraper in Chicago, Illinois (third tallest building in IL) and designed by architect firms Edward Durell Stone and The Perkins and Will partnership. It was completed in 1974 as the Standard Oil Building. There's talk about new owners ...

Friday, February 20, 2015

If you design your ecommerce site in such a way that your customer comes first, business should flow through nicely no matter what part of the world your customer resides. But the way to really build a seamless and enjoyable online buying experience is to pay attention to a couple of other important details. Here they are.

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Tic Tac mints. Ferrero Rocher chocolates. Nutella spread. All these delicious confectionery products are produced by Ferrero SpA, a $30 billion company, and brought to life by Michele Ferrero, who died at the age of 89.

He was a family man and had a great, global vision for his firm (well ahead of his time):

It was Michele Ferrero’s vision to expand internationally. In the 1950s, he opened production plants and offices in Europe. He expanded to the rest of the world starting in the 1970s. All the while the company shunned acquisitions, breaking into foreign markets by introducing products catering to local tastes.

Ferrero is the world’s fourth-biggest chocolate confectionery company, with 8% of the global chocolate market. No. 3 Nestlé has 12%, according to consumer research group Euromonitor’s data from 2013.

ABOUT GSBB

LAUREL DELANEY

The Global Small Business Blog (GSBB) was founded on July 20, 2004 by Laurel Delaney (pictured) for the purpose of helping entrepreneurs and small businesses expand their businesses internationally. It is ranked No. 1 in the world for entrepreneurs and small businesses interested in going global. Learn more about Laureland visit her company GlobeTrade.com.